


Gadlakutsha

by TheIncredibleIbex



Category: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Genre: (Im)Perfect Ending, F/F, Internalized Homophobia, Period Typical Homophobia, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 11:16:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5373353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIncredibleIbex/pseuds/TheIncredibleIbex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Audrey isn't sure if she's a good person, and she's fairly sure there isn't a place for her in this life. Kida convinces her otherwise as best she can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gadlakutsha

**Author's Note:**

> A gift for a friend of mine, because I am an awful person and did not get her a birthday gift. Feel free to throw rocks at me. Also I apologize for the not totally sunshine and rainbows ending. Think of it as the start of something great, not the happily ever after.

The world does not have a place in it for people like her. Audrey has known this since she was nine. 

When she was six, she often went to her father’s shop to peek at the new and marvelous things he was tinkering with, fixing up, making workable. When her father wouldn’t come home on time – Mama used to joke that he’d forget where he was even if lions were chasing him if you threw something shiny in front of him – she and her older sister would take him his dinner. Sometimes they made him think it was breakfast, sometimes they pretended there was no dinner tonight because Mama was mad. Messing around with him was always worth a laugh, even if he’d pretend Audrey’s favorite coat had been stolen off the clothesline or he swore up and down he’d been told by the teachers there’d be school on Saturdays from now on. 

But what she really loved was, on the way to her father’s shop, there was a ballet studio, and through the windows she could see the girls practicing. One girl in particular always smiled at Audrey, a smile that set the world aglow. She was white, of course; who ever heard of a ballerina that wasn’t? Thankfully she didn’t seem to be aware at that age that she should be avoiding people like Audrey. Sometimes, on the way back from her Papa’s, Audrey would see the girl waiting for her mother to come pick her up. They struck up an easy enough friendship, talking for brief moments or, if Audrey’s sister elected to stay home, the whole time it took for the other girl’s mother to show up.

Her name was Claudine; she was built like a bundle of twigs and had dull mousy brown hair, yet doe eyes that reflected universes of happy dreams. She was going to be the first American prima ballerina. Audrey was going to be a mechanical engineer like her father. Sure there had never been a woman who worked with her Papa, but there hadn’t been American prima ballerinas, either. They’d just have to be the first ones. As her sister grew into an accomplished boxer, Audrey’s hopes soared and Claudine’s soared along with them, both of them in a perfect bubble, sheltered from the coldness of reality.

Summers were the time for wasting hours, which Audrey did with odd jobs and pestering her father. Every little victory at the shop turned into a greater one. And off she would run to be there at six with a piece of candy and a smile. Audrey’s sister was getting full of talk of boys, which was going to be the death of their father, bless his poor soul. Audrey was getting full of Claudine, filled up with a happy warmth in her chest when they spoke, an electric shock when their hands tangled with each other and not unpleasant heat in her cheeks when they leaned in and whispered back and forth.

“I think I want to kiss her,” nine year old Audrey had said to her father at the dinner table one night. Those were the words that seemed to break the world. At the very least, it broke some dishes as he yanked her by her arm over towards him, suddenly livid and, under that, afraid.

Even though her dinner had clattered to the floor, she wasn’t released to go clean it up until he was done shouting at her, which stung all the more because Papa _never_ shouted. The details of every sentence were lost to history, but one thing kept ringing in her head for years afterwards: _“Good girls don’t kiss girls!”_

She was never allowed to see Claudine again.

Time passed. Mama died, Audrey dated no boys and only barely tolerated girls. She poured herself into her work instead, where the men were crude and made loud, uncouth jokes, where the word ‘ballet’ was as foreign as their accents and where male customers were the vast majority.

She made things, she fixed things, she brought things back to life that had been too totaled to be taken anywhere else. She was a miracle worker, they all said, all the other workers who were like brothers, and she waited for the day it would feel like enough. She waited for the day she would feel like she had somehow made up for being bad, being awful, being the worst kind of girl, because every time she turned down meeting some nice boy her father’s friend’s cousin knew, she saw it all over again in his eyes. She was not enough. Nothing would ever be enough.

She met a man named Rourke who made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.

After all,the money could be enough where she wasn’t.

 

* * *

 

She is standing in the lost city, the lost _empire_ , of Atlantis. There is no place here for her.

It’s a nice enough place, with people who are fascinated by her, by all of them, who hang onto their every word. Audrey kills time by wandering the marketplace. There’s a lot to do to help keep the impending weight of the fact they’re going to rob these people blind at bay; she watches weavers at work, observes tattoo artists, quietly sits down where she can see a man working old fish bones into flower pins for his child’s hair. She knows whatever they end up taking, it will hurt these people, people just as kind and normal as the ones back home.

The question of why she’s doing this is wrapped up with another question that lurks insidiously at the back of her mind: what if it isn’t enough? What if nothing is enough to make up for the kind of person she is? She’s one of ‘those’ women, she knows that. No one is going to be as precious as Claudine or hurt like that, since they don’t have the chance to get close, and yet she still stares at certain women, at girls when she was in school, sometimes at Helga. It’s suffocating, trying to shove it all down. And what makes it ache most is that Kida is gorgeous, kind and understands seemingly nothing about how wolves come in sheep’s clothing.

Audrey’s wandering feet take her to the source of the music that’s been filling the background of the city up with more white noise than usual. Her heart twists like it always does when dance is involved. Whatever you call this dancing around circles of drummers and two women wailing out something in Atlantean, though, it’s the exact opposite of ballet. This is wild, fast, impromptu, seemingly endless. She’s mesmerized enough she doesn’t realize she’s staring until someone taps her on the shoulder.

“Do you want to dance?” Kida asks. Audrey’s heart stops and then sputters rapidly like a revved engine.

“Eh, I don’t know how,” she shrugs, leaning against the side of the building. She imagines trying to do any of these movements in her overalls and adds, “’M not exactly dressed for it either, Princess.”

For a moment the white haired woman nods, perhaps remembering that all of Audrey’s things are now in the midst of the ocean somewhere. They stand together and watch, heat blossoming at the back of Audrey’s neck where she can feel Kida’s breathing. The Atlantean smells like a sharper, deeper version of spearmint, maybe something that grows down here? And if she let herself Audrey’s sure she could dreg up some childlike wonder at the absurdity of the fact she’s talking to a _princess_ of a _lost civilization_ who lives _under the sea_ but she doesn’t try to reach for that sense of wonder. It’s hard enough knowing they’re going to have leave without falling in love with anything or anyone.

Kida takes Audrey by the wrist and tugs her through the alleys to something that is apparently a shop of some kind, because Kida does what she wants when she wants, and because Audrey is already losing the battle not to be charmed by that. She says something in Atlantean, which Audrey has given up learning when she realized she was doing good to be able to figure out people’s names. What matters is that the next thing Audrey knows, she’s being presented with multiple articles of clothing, all of which show enough skin her father is probably waking up somewhere in a cold sweat.

“This is… I sorta lost my wallet. During, y’know, the whole ship sinking thing.” She looks at Kida, making one last attempt not to give in. Kida is all sharp blue eyes and soft curves and a voice that handles every language perfectly. She’s firm opinions, old traditions, new ideas, complexity and simplicity and Audrey has barely spent any time with her, but she’s falling hard for her already.

Kida just laughs lightly. Audrey’s knees quake precisely twice before she gets ahold of herself. “You repay me with your company. Too many hold their tongue around someone of my standing. So come. Pick something and we shall go.”

 

And Audrey does.

 

* * *

 

 

Milo is already there when they get back to the now much bigger swelling circle of music, his words drowned out by more drummers and singers and twelve-holed flutes that Audrey doesn’t know the name of. He’s taking notes, gesturing to people and things, and it takes a slap on the head for him to give Audrey the light of day. He takes one look and keeps looking, too stunned to even stammer.

“Kida talked me into it,” she shrugs, like it isn’t the least amount of clothing she’s ever worn in public, asking with a pointed look to his notebook, “What are you doing? Everyone else is dancing. Except Mole, but that’s probably for the best, honestly.”

“Writing down all I can about their linguistic diminutive forms of address based on physical attributes.” When she stares at him, he puts it less wordily: “They’ve got nicknames for us!”

She turns back to Kida. “What’re they calling me out there?”

Finally, she manages to catch Kida off guard. The look on her face is priceless, pretty, soft and so _human_ , seeing her flustered. As Milo starts to answer, Kida loudly declares, “Audrey, I shall teach you how to dance!”

Audrey lets out a huff of a laugh, grins to herself and feels her vows to not let this mean a thing crumble down. She’s awful at Atlantean dances, it turns out, but that might be due to the fact it slowly dawns on her she’s not the only woman dancing with another woman. The revelation hits repeatedly, half of her mind protesting she’s misreading everything, one fourth of it still hopeful, and one fourth drowning in the fact she’s not a good girl if she’s even thinking about this. Then she sees men dancing with men and focuses very hard on her footing and figuring out how to pivot on the ground, ending up dancing on her tip toes to be on a better eye level with Kida. It’s so impossible to think that this is a place where all the rules she’s been haunted by don’t apply. It’s roughly as impossible as finding a lost empire under the ocean full of multilingual people and a pretty girl willing to buy her dresses.

When she sees Vinny making out with an Atlantean guy, she trips over her own two feet. Kida catches her, badly, and for a moment they’re nearly nose to nose, pressed against each other, Audrey safe and secure in strong, slender arms. For a split second Kida leans in as if she’s going to-

The Latina girl forces herself away from the princess, makes her way through the crowd. She’s a New Yorker, she knows how to duck and weave, and soon enough she’s somewhere free of people where she can breathe. She follows the sound of water to a place with a fountain, one of many plazas in the city, and sinks gratefully onto the stone ledge of it, staring at her reflection for long enough she forgets where she is. The woman staring back at her in the water, distorted by ripples, is someone she doesn’t know. She was going to be a mechanical engineer, go to college for it, get a degree, become a big success. She would have a brownstone two story house in a good part of town, her own custom car, and her mother would fuss over her lack of ability to cook. She has vivid memories of that bright future she pictured.

Now she’s a thief and a liar and most definitely not going to have some kind of happy future with her family even if she finds some guy she can stomach pretending to love. She’s not a good girl. Kida is, though. Kida is good and honest and a little bit naïve, just enough for it not to be annoying, enough to be freeing and let her dream. If Audrey had been born down here and not up there – does it bear thinking about? She is what she is and Kida’s a princess, so even if Audrey weren’t part of a massive attempt to pull the wool over these people’s eyes she’s not in the same league as her.

Only when Kida finds her does Audrey realize she’s been sitting here long enough all sounds of music in the distance have faded. The white haired princess sits beside her and wraps an arm around Audrey’s shoulders. After a moment, she leans against Kida, feeling older than she should and very, very tired in a way that has nothing to do with dancing. For a while they sit there, neither of them knowing what to say to either ask or explain any of it.

“You never did tell me what they’re calling me out there,” Audrey notes. Kida bites her lip.

“Gadlakutsha. It means… there is a point in the ocean far lower than this, where even the greatest of our inventions could not go for long. A place darker and colder than anywhere else in the ocean. Dark as your hair,” she adds as Audrey’s brow knits together in a frown. “Even though there is too much pressure there for most things to even venture, there are some creatures native to such places. They manage to thrive even in that harshness.” She clears her throat, smoothes Audrey’s hair once, awkwardly. “Milo has told me about the way people on the surface believe love works. It is wrong.”

Audrey tries to shrug. “Ya get over it,” she manages, almost nonchalant. “What else can you do?” It was a rhetorical question.

“Stay.” That was _not_ a rhetorical answer. “Stay in Atlantis. We have no such unnatural hatreds here, and it is very lonely, being just high up enough in station not to always be spoken to truthfully. We treat our women far better, as well. I… would like you to consider it. I do not wish for harm to come to you up there.”

The sound she makes is somewhere between a snort of laughter and a stifled cry. “I gotta go back, Kida. I’ve still got things to do. Things to make up for. Like this,” she gestures between the two of them, and Kida’s face is a whirlwind of subtle expressions as she tries to understand.

“You have come here and risked your life as an explorer to repay some debt you feel you owe the world?” Kida says it like it’s crazy. Maybe it is.

“Nah, just my folks. Nobody else knows.”

Very carefully, Kida asks, “Will you really feel better then?”

No. Of course not. But that was never an option. A second wave of tiredness hits, rolls over her, and Audrey buries her face in her hands, exasperated, heavy with the weight of it all. Her sister has a man and works herself to the bone doing what their father wants, and comes home to lectures about babies and church and God and _so many things_. Little things that stack around them like bricks to build sturdy walls boxing them in. Audrey heaves a long suffering sigh. It is in this moment she knows she will never be able to help Rourke with his plan. So long as there is a place in existence where she can lay down instead of carrying the weight of the world on her back, so long as that place has Kida’s gentle voice and blunt questions, she knows whose side she’s on.

Rourke isn’t a good person. Kida is. So maybe, if Audrey stands by her, she can manage to help this place out, and be something a little bit more than living. She wants to be alive. She wants to know the joy of running to meet someone with a bit of candy in her pocket again. She wants the warmth in her tired bones to stay. She wants the light of Kida’s incredibly, impossibly blue eyes. Audrey has no idea what the princess sees in her. She can’t fathom that with an empire to choose from, somehow there wasn’t anybody better for her. But Mama always said not to argue with miracles.

With some effort, Audrey takes a deep breath, stands up and holds out an arm to Kida. “I think I feel better here. With you. I don’t want to get hurt back there. I just don’t wanna get hurt down here, either. I’m pretty sure even Gadlakutsha have breaking points, so… let’s just take this one step at a time.”

And it’s not perfect, in fact there’s a lot they need to talk about still, but in Kida’s arms, things aren’t cold and dark anymore. For the first time since she was nine Audrey feels lighter, as if the impossible is still within reach, as if she could kiss Kida and it would be okay.

Maybe there is a place for someone like her after all – at the bottom of the sea.


End file.
